than are dreamt of in your philosophy
by Stunt Muppet
Summary: The Time War affords many opportunities. Nine and Adric, before and after.


A/N: Written for the Whoniverse 1000 challenge over on LJ. Spoilers for _Logopolis_ and _Dalek_, inasmuch as the existence of the Time War is a spoiler.

* * *

It was one of his last assignments, right before the end. In a suicidal effort the Daleks had snapped shut the last CVE, damning the universe to its long-overdue heat death. He had been sent to open it again, and in the process he'd ended up on the other side.

The fluxes in timespace wrought by the war echoed even here, in the depths of E-space, and he crash-landed somewhere familiar before he'd ever been there at all.

_I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams._

He wouldn't have known anything about when he had landed if he hadn't seen a yet more familiar face through the TARDIS scanner. Unruly hair, curious eyes, clothes he had not yet grown into. All without the ever-present badge for mathematical excellence.

The Doctor opened the door to him, glad for the companionship, glad for a respite from the grim phantasmagoria unfolding in N-space. "Well, don't just sit there, then," he said. "Get in here and help me. You know a thing or two about maths, don't you?"

_There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy._

"But how does it work?" Adric asked, staring at its impossible interior — _I saw a blue box_, he'd said all those lifetimes ago, and hadn't there been just a hint of recognition in his voice, hadn't he adjusted to it rather too well?

"Dimensionally transcendental," he replied, bent over the console. "Inside and outside exist in separate dimensions. What do you know about coordinate gyrostabilisers?"

He was as eager to please as ever, was Adric, setting straight to work on systems that he didn't — couldn't — fully understand yet. And he never stopped asking questions, most of which the Doctor couldn't answer. Wouldn't want to fool around too much with causality, after all. But he could tell him stories.

_There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so._

"Tiny little universe, this." The necessary repairs had long since been made; they sat alone, just outside the doors, as the quiet of dawn dissappeared. "Nothin' more than a sink for another universe's entropy, and look at it now. Whole species, whole solar systems, don't even know they're just a dumping ground for someone else. And y'know what? The people who made it that way? They wouldn't hurt a soul." He laughed. "There's so much more out there. Least there used to be. Not so sure anymore."

"Tell me more," Adric asks him. "Tell me what else there is."

_Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England; of them I have much to tell thee._

The time came, finally, when he could delay no longer, when the call to war could no longer be resisted.

"Take me with you," Adric pleaded, as the Doctor prepared to take off again. "I don't want to stay here. Let me travel with you. I won't be trouble. I can do repairs, help you fly. Please."

I could, the Doctor thought, in spite of himself. Time was already turbulent; how much more damage could he possibly do by taking him along, by saving yet one more person from dying for him? Let him spare lives, at least, if he must end them too.

_The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, to tell him his commandment is fulfill'd – that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead._

Temporary solutions. Pallitives. Not worth it. Think about the bigger picture. He'd heard the words so many times, repeated them over and over again as he watched another planet burn to cinders. You may save a few people, a few planets, but what will you lose in exchange?

So he shook his head, said "Not this time, Adric. But I'll be back, not too long from now. You can come along then. Even if I don't say so. Only don't mention it to me; you know how it is, all this coming and going, I might be a bit confused."

With that he shut the doors, and let the TARDIS disappear.


End file.
